


Stormchasing

by Sketch_A_Bow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Bit sad, Copious weather mataphors, Hallucinations, I'm useless at these things, M/M, Misunderstandings, but not actually, maybe if he had come back sooner this wouldn't of happened, not even sorry, post Sherlock's 'death'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 00:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1246639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketch_A_Bow/pseuds/Sketch_A_Bow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Small one shot because I couldn't get the idea out of my head, and I enjoy writing feelsy things. My Gatiss joyful side is heavily tempered by a Moffatish streak lurking under the surface. I am a budgied up owl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stormchasing

     A tornado. That is what, when later asked to describe it, John says life was like. A tornado erupting and reforming and tearing around him, while he huddled in the eye of the storm, encapsulated in his shell of grief and despair. The people he knew – Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft – were like flickers of lighting in the abyss. He remembers them, brief distractions from the pain, but all encounters melding together, drowning under the numbness. Time had no meaning, though he now knows it was an eternal 18 months of Dante’s levels. Looking back, John cannot even recall exactly that first moment. Sherlock had ghosted back into his life, seeped through the tornado like rain to the center where John was shackled.

     Sherlock was such a part of him, such a mass of necessity, that John was hardly surprised to rise briefly from his stupor to see that old chair. The way Sherlock fit into it, like they were pieces of a natural puzzle. Of course his mind would forcibly drag Sherlock back, dredge him up from the wealth of moments stored in John’s mind-junkheap. His body was kicking in the self-preservation in the only way it had left to save him from the void. John just sat huddled on the rug, staring at Sherlock in his chair with his hair and eyes and gangly way of being too big while trying to be too small. The tiny piece, the miniscule observation that knocked the final bits of fog from John’s mind, was that Sherlock looked _nervous_.  Now that couldn’t be right. Could it? John thought about it as he absently rose and went to make tea in his rumpled pajamas that he had been wearing for days. He was slightly startled by the foul milk in the fridge. Brushing it off, he wandered back out into the living room, plopping a cuppa down in front of a very startled Sherlock. 

     “So,” he stated, looking blandly upon the man across from him as he settled into his respective chair. He stared into his mug, eventually glancing up to see Sherlock staring at him. “What?”

     “Well,” Sherlock began, and John could almost call his tone timid. “Well, this is just… the most you’ve done since I hm, came back. Usually you just sort of wander and stare and sit. Sometimes you cry or get angry and chuck things at the fireplace, and yell.”

     “Oh, really? And how long exactly have you been back, hmm? I suppose this is all to save me,” John trailed off into muttering. Of course his body would warn him of his own perilous activities. He was a doctor after all, and he had to know on some level what danger he was putting himself in. He just couldn’t bring himself to care. Nothing mattered anymore without Sherlock, without the bloody game.  So this was what his average mind had cooked up. A figment, a fraction of what he needed to survive, enough to continue existing. Realizing he had trailed off, John looked back at his flatmate, and caught a brief look of extreme sadness before it slipped away, back under the mask.

 

     Sherlock’s “return” settled the tornado into a hurricane.  It was just him and Sherlock in the flat, alone and together. None of the others ever came around anymore – they had given up trying weeks ago. Occasionally Mrs. Hudson would stop outside the door, leaving food or a few soft words to tempt John to rejoin the living. Not that that would happen. All that mattered had been torn from him, and now it was back. Whatever form he had taken, John had no intention of ever losing him again. So in the flat they both remained, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. Sherlock took every opportunity Mrs. Hudson left outside, bringing in the food or news, coaxing John with interesting movies and special teas.

     That was one of the things that disturbed John the most. It wasn’t HIS Sherlock. He didn’t act the same. No yelling or exclamations of boredom, no demands or dramatics. He was quiet most of the time, seeming to hover and sense what John needed or wanted. Of course he wouldn’t even be able to make a proper imaginary Sherlock, nobody could be the man, not even a memory of him. Sherlock would talk to him, allowing his voice to soothe John when he was sad, or standing and taking the abuse when John would yell, dodging the things thrown at him without attempting to stop the missiles. The flat was a wreck of torn papers and smashed lab equipment, though Sherlock made sure to clean up any dangerous debris. John only recalls seeing this strange new Sherlock slip back into his old skin three times during that period. Once was when a burglar tried to gain entrance through the window, perceiving the lack of activity to mean the flat was vacant. John had awoken to yelling and the crashing of crockery in the kitchen. By the time he had arrived, Sherlock had soundly smashed the man into the floor, and was dragging him down the stairs, dumping him unceremoniously out of the front door. John thought briefly upon the fact that Mrs. Hudson had never woken, but dismissed it as the work of her herbal soothers. 

     The other two times were when John had grown progressively despondent, reaching a point where he thought it better to join Sherlock in whatever after there was to be had, than to live on in this half-life hell. Lestrade had tried in vain to confiscate the gun he knew John owned, fearing this exact sort of situation after it had all happened. Unfortunately for him, John had had extreme practice of concealment in keeping his gun away from a bored Sherlock, and Lestrade had never turned it up for all his snooping. John would retrieve it from its secret spot and spend hours cleaning it while Sherlock alternated between regaling him with pleas and deducing his every move, trying to outwit him out of ending it. He got very close the second time, stopping only when Sherlock had fallen to the floor in front of him, speaking rapid and low in that way he had, tears tracking his face as he reasoned and rationalized why he should stay. After that, John didn’t realize his gun was missing until he sank into another dark mood. Assuming he had thrown and lost it during one of his tantrums, John stomped about the flat for hours, cursing at every object and Sherlock, hating the somewhat relieved look upon his face as he did so.

 

     During this new part of his life, there was one thing that pained John more than anything. The lack of contact. Before, John and Sherlock had not been anywhere near what one would call intimate. But they did have the inevitable contact of people who live and work together. Each day was filled with casual brushes, shoulder grabs, and drag-alongs, a million moments John never missed until it was too late. Now, Sherlock made a point to never touch him. Even in the throes of his fits, when Sherlock was begging him to stop, to come back, he never laid a finger upon John. There was some invisible line, one that Sherlock gave a wide margin, and one John desperately wished to break. That he held out for so long was due to the simple factor of fear. John was terrified to break the illusion. What if when he tried to grab that coat, all that he had left in a wisp of smoke? And so it was that John also kept himself clear of the line, until one day when he bulled through it quite by accident.

 

     It was a hateful day out, from what John could see through the window. Rainy, a cold mix of snow and wet. John sat huddled on his bed, replaying the movies in his head. A knock came, and after a few words Mrs. Hudson departed. John half-listened as Sherlock cracked the door and brought the food in, puttering in the kitchen for a moment before returning to the living room. Later, when John came to investigate, he found no food, but a bit of digging did turn up a bottle of scotch. Quickly grabbing the closest mug, John poured a glass and then chugged the bottle before Sherlock could make it into the room. Staggering back to bed, John lay out and let the warm feeling wash over him. Once he was sure he was fully smashed, he wandered back into the living area, peering around the darkness of the room. Not seeing Sherlock, John hobbled over to the couch, planning to wash away an hour watching TV. Almost to the edge, John managed to trip over a vase that had mercifully survived its flight, and tumbled heavily onto the couch. And onto a sleeping Sherlock.  Half jumping off of the couch, the two men ended up on the floor, a scared Sherlock pinned underneath John. For him, it was the brightest point in that dark time, that first touch. He lay there and let the warmth of Sherlock’s body seep into him, feeling Sherlock relax as he realized that no catastrophe was about to fall. They lay on the worn rug until dawn, the day looking brighter and more hopeful for them both.

 

     After this event, John found living in the confines of the flat to be almost pleasant. And Sherlock seemed to return a bit to his old self as well. He knew that this new level of his hallucinations could be only bad, but he didn’t give a damn. Every chance he had, John kept contact with Sherlock. He would follow him around as he worked on experiments, (John never did know where he was getting experiments to work on, another facet of his disease) hugging him from behind, feeling his silky hair. They cuddled on the couch to bland reality shows, John chuckling as Sherlock deduced the mystery in the first five minutes. Sherlock awoke one night to feel John crawling into his bed, huddling close to the warmth of him in the cold flat. The sleeping together was John’s favorite part. Because they just slept. There was no expectation of anything more – they were both too broken and unsure of themselves for that – just a feeling of comfort and knowing that the other was there. Those moments in the dark were when John felt that Sherlock could actually be real, alive and there with him. The best times in the not so shattered life of John Watson.

 

     When it finally happened, it was from the most unexpected quarter of John’s world. It was sometime in November, a cold but sunny day outside the grimy windows. John and Sherlock had been watching telly by the fire when they heard a faint knocking downstairs. John paid it no mind, knowing Mrs. Hudson would handle whatever it was. Then the knocking came on the door to the flat, just one slight rap before the slightly ajar door was pushed open. The post man peeked around, looking embarrassed to be interrupting. “Sorry, just both doors were open, and I have a package for a Mr. Watson?” The man looking confusedly between the two silent men, and opting to go for the closer option, strode up to Sherlock and thrust out his clipboard. “If you could just sign for this, I’ll be on my way and out of your hair.” Sherlock calmly took the clipboard, flourishing his signature, and the postman was gone. The façade fell away as Sherlock peeked a nervous glance at John, anticipating an eruption at the intrusion, the first in months.  What he found instead, was John curled into a ball, silently crying. The only thing he said after Sherlock had wrapped himself around him protectively was, “he saw.”

 

~~Finis~~

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, now here is my query for anyone reading this: Should I add to it? Write this experience from Sherlock's POV, or continue the story further into John's recovery and the repairing of their lives? Or should I leave this as it is, a sad little moment. I leave it in your fandomy hands. Be as cruel or generous to poor addled John as you like.


End file.
